Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 50
July 21, 2017
“The Reader On The 6.27” by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent (2015)
[image error]
“Some people are born deaf, mute or blind.”
The creation of books is, to my mind, a symbol of humanity’s hope for the future. It’s a sign that we think it’s important to put down all we’ve learnt and think we’ve learnt for other people to read. The act of destroying books, therefore, is horrendous to me. A task we had to complete during my university degree involved ripping up a book to reconstruct the text in a new order, and that was hard enough. The idea of destroying books en masse … I c...
July 17, 2017
“While The Light Lasts” by Agatha Christie (1997)
[image error] “The Ford car bumped from rut to rut, and the hot African sun poured down unmercifully.”
Were this a blog where I discussed all manner of pop culture issues, I’d open with a loud scream of joy that Doctor Who has finally taken a great step and cast a woman in the lead role. I, for one, cannot wait to see what Jodie Whittaker does with the part, and I fail to understand anyone who has considered themselves a fan of this show all the while a man has been central to it, yet has somehow failed to...
July 15, 2017
“The Poisoned Chocolates Case” by Anthony Berkeley (1929)
[image error] “Roger Sheringham took a sip of the old brandy in front of him and leaned back in his chair at the head of the table.”
During the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, dozens of authors tried their hands at writing murder mysteries. When Anthony Berkeley published this one, he attempted to subvert a genre that was saturating the market and yet was nowhere near being over. Agatha Christie had only published eight of her books by this time; Ngaio Marsh was yet to publish anything. However, the trick...
July 10, 2017
“The Last Family In England” by Matt Haig (2004)
[image error] “Dogs like to talk.”
Broadly speaking, if we’re sticking with the insistence that you can split the population into “dog people” and “cat people”, I fall down unapologetically on the side of cats. I’ve nothing against dogs at all – I will always fuss over a dog if given the opportunity, and some of my friends have utterly adorable dogs – but if I had to have one of the two, I’d opt for a cat. However, this weekend I read a book about dogs. Or, more accurately, a book narrated by a dog.
Prince...
July 8, 2017
“City Of Stairs” by Robert Jackson Bennett (2014)
[image error]“‘I believe the question, then,’ says Vasily Yaroslav, ‘is one of intent.'”
Some books feel like spending time in the embrace of an old friend. Others feel as refreshing as diving into a swimming pool on a hot summer day. But there are always the ones that put you in mind of cloying, claggy swamps, where every step you take is prefaced by ten minutes of wiggling your leg out of the quagmire with that shlurp sound, only to find you’ve lost your shoe. Again. I emerge from City Of Stairs after o...
July 1, 2017
“Sum” by David Eagleman (2009)
[image error] “In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the evens reshuffled into a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together.”
There are several questions that have long stood unanswered throughout the history of human. Is there a God? Do we have souls? What is it about Joey Essex that people seem to find tolerable? But one of the biggest is, of course, the question of what happens after we die. Some say we go to heaven or hell, others say we reincarn...
June 29, 2017
“Nothing But Blue Skies” by Tom Holt (2001)
[image error] “Four men in dark grey suits and black sunglasses climbed out of a black, fat-wheeled Transit and slammed the doors.”
Last week the weather did something strange on my home island. It got hot. Really hot. Tarmac-meltingly, skin-peelingly, eating-a-Twister-every-hour hot. The British are not equipped for this sort of weather, so it was almost a welcome relief when, four days later, we had a loud thunderstorm and the rain, drizzle and grey clouds returned en masse. Naturally, we’ve done nothing...
June 26, 2017
Twenty Years of Magic
[image error]“After all this time?”
“Always.”
This isn’t a review, but I didn’t think I could let the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter pass without comment. I was introduced to the first book in 1997 by a teacher of mine. He read it to the class, and I was hooked from the opening line. It was something wonderful and new, but I don’t know if then I knew enough to be able to say that the book would still be so important to me two decades later.
We all know the story by now, and the fans number in their mill...
June 25, 2017
“The Hollow” by Agatha Christie (1946)
[image error] “At six thirteen am on a Friday morning Lucy Angkatell’s big blue eyes opened upon another day and, as always, she was at once wide awake and began immediately to deal with the problems conjured up by her incredibly active mind.”
Fresh from exploring a fictional version of Christie’s life, I return to her invented worlds. Let’s dive right in.
Poirot arrives at the country pile of Sir and Lady Angkatell, The Hollow, to find himself immediately thrust into a strange sight. A man lies on the edg...
June 22, 2017
“Feed” by Mira Grant (2010)
[image error] “Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot – in this case, my brother Shaun – deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.”
Fiction is laced with creepy creatures, and it’s always fun to see an author mess around with them. This year so far I’ve already dealt with vampires, monsters, gorgons and fairies, so it’s time to turn my attention to zombies.
It was 2014 when it all began. We’d cured...
